Pilot had lucky escape

Engine failure at 1000 feet could have ended in tragedy for an Adelaide pilot today.

Australian Search and Rescue received a distress call from the man at 9am, who was flying somewhere above the Woodford area when his engine shut down.

He managed to land the ultralite plane in a private paddock at Delaney’s Creek, near Kilcoy, with only minor damage to the fuselage and no injuries.

Energex helicopters were tasked to search for him at 9.50am. Energex pilot Brent Hall said they spotted the man at 11am leaning non-chalantly on his plane.

“He was quite unfazed by the whole thing,” Mr Hall said.

“He is very lucky he wasn’t over terrain that didn’t provide him a landing area. As a pilot, I am always concerned about flying over areas where you can’t land, but between Kilcoy and Caboolture, there are numerous farms and sufficient areas to land.”

Mr Hall said the Energex crew went out to ultralite crashes and emergency landings about three times a year.

“It’s certainly not an every day thing,” he said.

The man, in his 50s, had just bought the ultralite and was flying it back to Adelaide. Friends from Caboolture picked him up from the paddock.